It's also possible to reduce your trackability by switching to websites instead of apps for anything with a web presence, especially in conjunction with ad blockers or other browser extensions that prevent or delete tracking cookies. I am somewhat notorious for my unwillingness to install apps on my phone among my friends & family. I work in infosec, though, so my personal preferences are not necessarily identical to what I would recommend to other people. But I don't find it burdensome to just use websites instead of apps in most cases, so that's a pretty easy move.
Nice post, thank you for sharing your experiences.
For YouTube, there are two apps, "NewPipe," and "PipePipe," in the f-droid store, for streaming (and downloading) youtube content.
I'm not sure if it's those particular apps, or something about how I have my phone's network connection.setup, but I never see ads on YouTube when using them. (But I do see ads if I visit YouTube in a browser on the same phone).
Yes, seconding this for phones. I use NewPipe on my phone and don't see youtube ads. On my laptop, I watch youtube on Firefox with the uBlock Origin add-on (https://ublockorigin.com/) and that blocks ads on websites and on youtube. There's also something called SponsorBlock which blocks sponsored content within the videos themselves, but I don't have enough experience to recommend for or against it.
Another thing that I would suggest to people, as someone who worked in digital marketing for many years, is denying cookies whenever possible. If a site gives you the option to change cookie settings, turn off everything it lets you. Cookies send data to advertisers and marketers, and there is a LOT of data that can be accessed. I've sat in sales meetings with companies that use cookies to track down IP addresses so they can send you mail advertising (if you've ever looked at something online and then mysteriously gotten a postcard in the mail about, that's why). If you're using a VPN that's obviously less risky but a lot of demographic information can still be collected. There's not necessarily a guarantee that turning off the cookies will protect you fully, but taking the time to do it provides you at least some level of protection.
For musical exploration check out the Radio Garden app. The interface is a giant globe with radio stations from all corners of the world. Lots of Independent and Cooperative options!
I appreciate the update. I was thinking about moving to protonmail and was happy to hear about your experience. Thanks for the info about the alternative to Audible. My 12- and 14-year-olds are HUGE audiobook fans, and they use Libby (from the library quite a bit), but if they don't want to wait 3 months for a new release, we occasionally buy from Audible. We have completely stopped buying from Amazon except for this subscription, so I am excited to explore this alternative.
Libro.fm is wonderful! I made the switch from Audible, too, and I agree, there are no downsides. Thanks for giving us an update on how your project is going. It’s good to hear the relative difficulty of installing/using Linux and GrapheneOS is not insurmountable for regular folks.
Thanks for your thoughts. Last time we talked about leaving (un)social media, I already mentioned decentralized alternatives in the Fediverse. I want to emphasize that again here ;-)
I've been doing my own version of this, and have switched browsers to Brave and DuckDuckGo, neither of which show me ads on YouTube. Not sure if it'll stay that way, but for now it's working!
It's also possible to reduce your trackability by switching to websites instead of apps for anything with a web presence, especially in conjunction with ad blockers or other browser extensions that prevent or delete tracking cookies. I am somewhat notorious for my unwillingness to install apps on my phone among my friends & family. I work in infosec, though, so my personal preferences are not necessarily identical to what I would recommend to other people. But I don't find it burdensome to just use websites instead of apps in most cases, so that's a pretty easy move.
Nice post, thank you for sharing your experiences.
For YouTube, there are two apps, "NewPipe," and "PipePipe," in the f-droid store, for streaming (and downloading) youtube content.
I'm not sure if it's those particular apps, or something about how I have my phone's network connection.setup, but I never see ads on YouTube when using them. (But I do see ads if I visit YouTube in a browser on the same phone).
Yes, seconding this for phones. I use NewPipe on my phone and don't see youtube ads. On my laptop, I watch youtube on Firefox with the uBlock Origin add-on (https://ublockorigin.com/) and that blocks ads on websites and on youtube. There's also something called SponsorBlock which blocks sponsored content within the videos themselves, but I don't have enough experience to recommend for or against it.
Another thing that I would suggest to people, as someone who worked in digital marketing for many years, is denying cookies whenever possible. If a site gives you the option to change cookie settings, turn off everything it lets you. Cookies send data to advertisers and marketers, and there is a LOT of data that can be accessed. I've sat in sales meetings with companies that use cookies to track down IP addresses so they can send you mail advertising (if you've ever looked at something online and then mysteriously gotten a postcard in the mail about, that's why). If you're using a VPN that's obviously less risky but a lot of demographic information can still be collected. There's not necessarily a guarantee that turning off the cookies will protect you fully, but taking the time to do it provides you at least some level of protection.
For musical exploration check out the Radio Garden app. The interface is a giant globe with radio stations from all corners of the world. Lots of Independent and Cooperative options!
I appreciate the update. I was thinking about moving to protonmail and was happy to hear about your experience. Thanks for the info about the alternative to Audible. My 12- and 14-year-olds are HUGE audiobook fans, and they use Libby (from the library quite a bit), but if they don't want to wait 3 months for a new release, we occasionally buy from Audible. We have completely stopped buying from Amazon except for this subscription, so I am excited to explore this alternative.
Libro.fm is wonderful! I made the switch from Audible, too, and I agree, there are no downsides. Thanks for giving us an update on how your project is going. It’s good to hear the relative difficulty of installing/using Linux and GrapheneOS is not insurmountable for regular folks.
Thanks for your thoughts. Last time we talked about leaving (un)social media, I already mentioned decentralized alternatives in the Fediverse. I want to emphasize that again here ;-)
Here is my translation into German:
https://www.trueten.de/archives/13690-Rueckzug-aus-dem-Panoptikum-oder-Ein-paar-Monate-mit-Linux-und-GrapheneOS.html
I've been doing my own version of this, and have switched browsers to Brave and DuckDuckGo, neither of which show me ads on YouTube. Not sure if it'll stay that way, but for now it's working!